Monday, March 26, 2012

One of the cooler efforts we've been associated with in awhile, Cdling (pronounced "seedling") is a ratings agency like S&P and FICO that measures risk for local and global investors, experts and startups.

Here's an explanation of what they do:

Low cost startups are unleashing millions of inexperienced investors and hundreds of incubators globally. Driven by an urgent search for economic growth, governments are creating angel investor incentives, lower barriers to foreign capital and reducing regulation. With legal crowd funding outlets in the US like Kickstarter becoming more commonplace, a lot of people will get hurt unless ratings like Cdling’s are established.

FICO scores, S&P rating reports and stock markets have long been used to measure and reduce risk and make commerce faster and smoother. Now Cdling is doing the same thing for the startup community.

Cdling rates people in terms of their real world experience at selecting which companies will succeed by analyzing who has invested with who and in what founding teams. Cdling also scores companies by predicting their likelihood to meet their milestones (this is where Inkling comes in.)

Investors can then use this insight to monitor more, smaller deals, catch the best breaking deals when they are ready to be financed, and as an early warning system to make sure they are spending their limited time and attention where it will earn the most return.

Cdling is currently closed to the general public, but you can get added to the pilot and track their progress by following this link. When you do get in, you'll have an extra CD$5,000 to spend on predictions.